Best Expense Management Software 2021
No matter the size of your company, there is one thing that you’ll always want to be doing right: money. There’s a variety of ways companies use money, but in this article, we want to talk about how you can best track the coming and going of your company’s money. Your company’s money matters may not be so complicated when you only have a few employees, but large corporations with hundreds — or even thousands — of employees are definitely in need of robust and intuitive expense management software.
There is an array of software available out there, but most enable core tracking and reporting capabilities such as receipt scanning, expense approval, reimbursement tracking, manual expense entry, administrative editing, report generation, mobile accessibility, the status of reimbursement, and configurable expense policies — to name a few.
That’s a lot to consider, so we’re going to do the heavy lifting for you and recommend five of the best expense tracking software with consideration to company size.
What’s on This Page
Top 5 Rated Expense Management Software
Expensify
Best for mid to large-size companies with lots of expenses to be processed
Expensify is one of the most popular expense tracking software out there. You can easily snap a picture of the receipt and their SmartScan technology will read and extract all the information for you — no manual entry is needed!
They can also import expenses directly from your bank and credit cards and generate an IRS-guaranteed e-Receipt. The reimbursement approval process is effortless as well: approve the expense reports online and reimbursements will be directly sent to a checking account.
Price:
- $5.00 per user per month
Overall Ratings:
StackCompare.com
5.0 (Aggregate Score)
Capterra.com
4.4 (111 user reviews)
G2.com
4.3 (2648 user reviews)
Xero
Best for bookkeeping in small businesses
Xero is more than just an expense management system. It’s a comprehensive application that helps organize companies in terms of creating quotes, invoices, repeating invoices, templates, invoice reminders, and linking to your bank account. Many accountants recommend Xero as the best bookkeeping software for its wide range of functionality. If you’re not an accounting professional, that’s okay too! Xero’s basic functions are good enough for small businesses.
Some features that are worth noting include the ability to customize your sales invoices on Xero, as well as setting default due dates and reminders to facilitate payment. Xero also integrates well with other applications, making expense reconciliation efficient and accurate. Bonus? Its reporting capability also makes doing taxes easy at the end of the year!
Price:
- $11.00 per user per month
Overall Ratings:
StackCompare.com
4.5 (Aggregate Score)
Capterra.com
4.0 (60 user reviews)
G2.com
4.3 (372 user reviews)
SAP Concur
Best for travel expense management in large-scale global companies
SAP Concur is a SaaS expense report management product that handles corporate travel booking, expense report automation, reimbursement, audit, business intelligence, and corporate card integration. More than 15,000 companies around the world use SAP Concur.
Concur’s ease of use means that you as a business traveler can easily book your flight tickets and hotels, save your boarding passes, and expense them all on the same tool. It also has features such as itemization per day for hotel stays, currency conversions, reminders, and escalation workflows. Since it saves what you’ve entered before, it auto-fills your information the next time you have a similar type of expense. However, you do need to provide every detail on your own when there is no previous information. To help you keep track of your expenses, you’ll receive an email when something needs approval and when the approval went through or was declined.
Concur is an excellent system for large-scale organizations that have offices around the globe. It also integrates with corporate credit cards.
Price:
- $8.00 per user per month
Overall Ratings:
StackCompare.com
4.63 (Aggregate Score)
Capterra.com
4.0 (1351 user reviews)
G2.com
4.0 (5364 user reviews)
Zoho Expense
Best for expense reports on mobile devices
Zoho Expense is made for the savvy mobile user that appreciates real-time updates of their expenses. With the Zoho Expense tracking app, a receipt will be generated automatically once you’ve uploaded a picture of your receipt. The app can also record business mileage, connect debit/credit cards, create multi-currency reports, send you real-time notifications about reimbursements, remind you of pending approvals, and help you set up auto-approval/rejection.
On their app, you’ll see a dashboard with insights such as unsubmitted and submitted reports summary, total to-be-reimbursed amount, and the number of unreported expenses, etc. You can also integrate Zoho with QuickBooks Online to streamline your accounting needs.
Price:
- Free version available, or $5.00 per user per month for a more advanced version
Overall Ratings:
StackCompare.com
4.25 (Aggregate Score)
Capterra.com
4.6 (602 user reviews)
G2.com
4.5 (674 user reviews)
Emburse Abacus
Best for travel expense management at mid-size businesses
Emburse Abacus is a real-time expense management solution that uses data and behavior analysis to automate expense creation and approvals. You will see high-priority items first, as well as recommendations, flagged expenses, and recurring expenses. You can also incorporate your corporate credit cards.
Additionally, Emburse Abacus gives you the flexibility to go out and choose your own items to be submitted for reimbursement. For example, when you travel for work, you can track your flights, hotels, and any vehicles under their own categories.
Price:
- $9.00 per user per month
Overall Ratings:
StackCompare.com
4.25 (Aggregate Score)
Capterra.com
4.4 (55 user reviews)
G2.com
4.5 (1043 user reviews)
Our Rating Process
We assessed each software based on four criteria and scored them each out of five points to help you with your decision making:
Automation
Integration
Reporting Capabilities
Pricing
Automation
Think about expense management software that can extract information from your digital receipts and upload information automatically, whereas others require manual entry. Ideally, the software can also route the expense to the appropriate approver and format the expense for reporting automatically.
Integration
Expenses go hand-in-hand with your company’s accounting, tax, and enterprise resource planning software. When you choose expense management software, try to pick one that can integrate with external financial systems!
Reporting Capabilities
Companies often differ in reporting needs, depending on the regulatory bodies, external stakeholders, and internal leadership or management they report to. If your company has various needs, try to go for software that allows you to customize reporting features.
Pricing
And here we go, talking about money again! This is an especially important factor when you have lots of employees. Most expense software charge between $5 and $10 per user per month so you really want to make sure that your employees are using the software right. There may also be an additional cost for integration with other business systems or building organization-specific workflows.
Product Features
Expensify
$5
/ month per user
- Integration
- Automated processing
- Customer Support
Xero
$11
/ month per user
- Small business
- Customizable
- Automated processing
SAP Concur
$8
/ month per user
- Automated processing
- Currency conversions
- Scalable
Zoho Expense
$5
/ month per user
- Multiple devices
- User friendly
- Automated processing
Alternative Options
Other Services
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best app for keeping track of expenses?
There really isn’t a perfect answer to this question as expense management apps out there all have different features, benefiting companies of various sizes and needs. For example, SAP Concur is best for global large-scale companies, whereas Xero is best for bookkeeping in small businesses. Before you decide on one software, make sure you have compared multiple software to see which one suits your needs the most.
How do you categorize expenses?
There are three major types of financial expenses: Fixed, Variable, and Periodic.
- Fixed expenses are expenses that stay more or less the same for a long time, like office rent or vehicle lease payments.
- Variable expenses change from month to month, such as utilities, meals, and entertainment.
- Periodic expenses are expenses that happen rarely, such as car repairs or an emergency trip.
Some popular expense categories you’ll see on many expense tracking apps include benefits, education, office supplies, meals, entertainment, utilities, transportation, marketing, and team building, etc.
What are some must-have features of expense management software?
We’ve listed out a lot of features in this article, but the major features that you’d likely be grateful for include: recording receipts, automatically importing expenses from credit cards, arranging tax deductions, approving payments, running reports, and automating the workflow. If the app has great user interface features and a responsive customer support team, then that’s a bonus!